Press Council: Complaint by a pedophile against Blick dismissed

The fact that Blick showed a picture of a paedophile church administrator from Murg SG in 2008 and called him by name does not constitute a breach of the journalistic code. This was announced by the Swiss Press Council on Tuesday, justifying its decision with the fact that the paedophile had commented on the controversy surrounding his person and his exercise of a church office in the SF programme "Schweiz Aktuell" the day before without any anonymization. The Swiss Press Council rejected his complaint from September 2008, in which he had argued that he was a pedophile, but had never outed himself as a pedophile with his name and address. As a church administrator, he was also not a public figure, the complainant argued.
The report of August 7, 2008 entitled "Confessing pedophile now holds a church office" printed the correct first name and the initial of the correct surname and a picture of the man in which his eyes were covered with black bars. Two days later, the newspaper doubled down and showed the man with his face uncovered and gave his full name.